Putting the National Interest First

As a recent Chicago Tribune editorial noted, most House members chose last month to “put partisanship above progress on the nation’s debt” by supporting budget plans favored only by one party or the other. But 38 lawmakers voted for bipartisan legislation to follow through on the work of the President’s fiscal commission.

Sara Imhof, Midwest regional director for The Concord Coalition, recently joined the Tribune in praising those 38 lawmakers – including five from Illinois – for their political courage.

The Cooper-LaTourette plan these House members backed is a comprehensive approach to fiscal reform that combines defense and domestic spending cuts, changes in the entitlement programs, and tax reform with additional revenue for deficit reduction. Imhof writes that this plan offers “a credible, fair-minded path to a sustainable federal budget.”

Future efforts along these lines will be needed. “True fiscal reform must come eventually,” Imhof says, “and it will require bipartisan compromise.”

In an op-ed Monday Judd Gregg, a former U.S. senator from New Hampshire who serves on Concord’s board of directors, called on the President’s commission to reconvene to update its “fiscal menu,” giving members of Congress later this year “an opportunity to act outside the partisan boxes that will frustrate serious action.”